Riding to Beat the Pain  Vin Tanner
by cowgirlfromhell
Summary: OW - Vin Tanner saves a woman from a cruel fate.  In the end will she choose him or send him hell bent for leather...Riding to Beat the Pain?
1. Chapter 1

Riding to Beat the Pain – Vin Tanner

More out of curiosity than anything else Vin Tanner squinted through his Army issue brass spyglass at the small Indian encampment below, his gaze landing on first one wickiup then another. Sweat rolled down his face as the hot noonday sun beat down on him and he carefully wiped his face on his sleeve keeping the reflection off the polished brass to a minimum. What was spread out before him was more than likely a faction of the larger raiding party he had spotted a few days earlier poised to cross into Mexico for the express purpose of stealing cattle as well as kidnapping any folks unlucky enough to get caught up in their sweep.

The Apache below him were, for the most part, at rest. The tribe members quiet and immobile in the fierce heat. That is all except for one stern looking warrior who stood expectantly, arms crossed over his massive chest, waiting. A lone figure, small and thin and most likely a female, stumbled ungracefully into the small clearing, dried branches stacked high in trembling arms.

The warrior's hand snaked out with lightning speed and struck viciously at the stunned worker, her face hidden behind a curtain of ebony hair and, as the wood fell in a jumble on the ground in front of them, she hung her head and waited for the next blows. They came swiftly; one, two, three in rapid succession but the female kept her feet and balance in defiance of gravity and most likely the brave. Dissatisfied with the punishment meted out so far the warrior then grabbed one of the fallen branches and beat the woman until she did fall to the ground and tucked herself into a ball.

Having lived with two different tribes, Vin knew the lot of a squaw was hard but that of an Indian slave was harsher and more brutal and that nothing he could do, short of putting a bullet in her head and ending her life of misery, would change that fact. He then watched in disgust as the warrior kicked the curled woman for good measure and thought that maybe a well-aimed shot at the Indian's feet on his way out of the arroyo would cause the son of a bitch to think twice before abusing the captive further.

Vin took one last look as the brave moved out of his line of sight then, as if instinctively knowing she was being watched, the slave woman rose into a sitting position and stared directly at the tracker. He lowered the spyglass and swiped a hand over his strained eyes then took it up again to see if what he had just seen was right. The sun and the heat had ways of playing tricks on a person.

The slave's tangled dark hair was dull and matted and her face and arms were smeared with some sort of filthy grease, most likely pilfered axel or rendered bear fat, which she had slathered on as protection from the blistering sun. Nothing unusual there. What had caught his eye only moments before were her eyes and when he looked again they were still as blue as his and, at that moment, just as tortured. Lowering the spyglass Vin sat back on his haunches to wait.

On the high desert nights were cool and desert predators left the relative safety of crevices and overhangs in search of food while birds of prey whooshed overhead cutting short, often times with high pitched shrieks, the lives of various other desert dwellers. As darkness grew Vin Tanner continued to watch the Indian encampment from atop the small outcropping taking care not to loosen the brittle red rocks and send down a shower below alerting the small band to his presence. As it was the horses had caught wind of him and nickered softly shifting from unshod hoof to unshod hoof while Peso waited patiently on the far side of the rocks out of earshot of the other equines.

Vin watched until the fading light made it impossible to see anything outside of the ring of the main cook fire where the slave woman dipped her fingers into the near empty pot and scraped the remains of the prairie dog stew off the sides and ate hungrily. She then walked slowly to the edge of the creek to wash up while the others drifted inside various shelters to sleep.

Squatting by the water's edge the woman rinsed her calloused hands, sluiced water over her face and smoothed down her matted hair as best she could. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she rocked back on her heels and toppled over in the dirt where she lay until her head cleared. Stiff and battered muscles, along with branch whipped skin, made it especially painful as she rose and made her way back to the fire's edge where she tossed aside a few stones before laying down on the cold, hard packed earth.

Unfettered as she was, Vin wondered momentarily why she didn't just walk away but he knew that by walking into the desert at night she would more than likely freeze to death. He also knew a runaway slave, when caught, was severely punished and though her present lot was hard she was still alive, her nose uncut.

The leader of the small band walked silently to where the woman lay still as death, feigning sleep. He toed her painfully in the back and receiving no response he simply fell upon her, roughly rolling her onto her back. Lifting her deerskin covering he entered her quickly, brutally; a cowardly act for a warrior but his right as the obvious owner of the slave. The woman never uttered a sound and when the Indian was finished with her she curled into a ball, silent sobs shaking her body. Vin lowered the spyglass.

Sitting quietly as the sliver of moon began to wane and the cooking fire in the draw was reduced to a glowing pile of embers Vin planned his escape route out in his mind, the quickest way out of the area, the quickest way back to Four Corners. A lone coyote cried in the distance and young pups answered in immature barks and yips. The night was noisy and the dogs of darkness bespoke their joy at simply being alive and covered the sound of his footfall and the sudden intake of her breath as he squatted and closed his hand over the sleeping woman's mouth.

Vin held fast as she bit his hand and tried to scrabble away. He grabbed her roughly by the hair to stop her backward motion and whispered harshly, "Stop! Don't fight me. I've come to help you." He saw the whites of her terrified eyes and, tightening his hand over her mouth, he pinned her torso to the ground with his knees and tried desperately to stop her from making any more noise.

She was strong and continued to fight him, his words failing to have any effect on her. "Be still! I've come to take you back with me," he then translated into his rudimentary Apache. All movement from her ceased and they sat like two statues watching the entrance of the nearest structure, the woman breathing heavily through her noise, his one hand still covering her mouth, the other fisted painfully in her mass of raven hair.

The camp remained silent and still and Vin was thankful that hunger had most likely forced this small band to eat any camp dogs they may have had. He removed his hand from the woman's mouth and gently let loose of her hair and falling into a primitive sign language he urged her to get up and go with him. Nodding, she rose to her feet and walked quickly away from the camp in the direction he indicated and soon they were both mounted on Peso's broad back.

Vin walked the horse slowly and quietly as he picked his way through the darkness until the sun began to break the horizon. He then urged the horse to pick up the pace and they fled to the north toward civilization. The exhausted woman sat astride in front of him and fought to stay awake, her emaciated body jerking every time she began to doze off. Ignoring the smell of her, one that he'd come to tolerate fairly well during his times with "his tribes", Vin pulled her in close to his body and, with one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, she leaned into him and slept.

They ate up the miles relentlessly until the sun became too hot and, rather than run the horse in the baking noonday heat, Vin stopped their hurried flight near a large outcropping of rocks through which a medium sized stream ran. He dismounted and pulled the woman down to stand beside him.

He could now see her well in the daylight and though her hair was long and black as coal like the People's it was soft and fine as were her features. Dark lashes fringed the bluest eyes he'd ever seen and, as he unsaddled Peso and dropped his saddlebags into the dust, they stared at him fearfully. The horse had wandered away to drink from the stream and Vin made no threatening moves toward her; just saw to the comfort of his horse then squatted next to the stream to fill a canteen.

Cupping his hands, the tracker lifted water to his parched lips while the woman watched out of the corner of her eye. If he meant to harm her there were plenty of rocks scattered in the streambed with which to bash in his head she figured and moved to the stream a few feet down from him to drink her fill.

Vin hooked the canteen over his saddle horn, pulled the spyglass from one saddlebag and, climbing a few feet up the outcropping, he searched the horizon through the lens and saw only the shimmering waves of heat radiating off the desert. Snapping it shut the device slipped from his hand and rolled beneath a ledge. He reaching under the rock to retrieve it and felt a white-hot pain lance through his entire hand and, when he pulled it from the shadows, a gila monster hung on for dear life. "God Damn!" he cursed and clumsily scrambling down from the rocks, the spyglass all but forgotten.

Taking in a deep cleansing breath he walked slowly but purposefully to his saddlebags, the reptile swaying gently as he walked, and pulled out his spare shirt. With his good hand and his teeth he quickly tore a strip off the tail and clumsily tried to wrap it around his wrist to fashion a crude tourniquet. Beneath the clamped jaws and wriggling teeth his hand throbbed, the pain radiating out to his fingertips and up to his wrist and he laughed at his clumsiness and his misfortune. He'd come close to it many times, had even had a horse snake bit out from under him, but now it seemed his luck had finally run out.

As he tried to draw the scrap of cloth tighter, nimble hands took the ends and the woman tied it as tightly as she could. She then placed her fingers on his chin and raised his gaze from his hand to her face and waited expectantly. "Knife," he said to her in Apache and pointed to the saddlebags as sweat broke out on his brow.

Rummaging through the leather pouches the woman produced a large Bowie knife with Souix markings on the bone handle. She returned to the tracker and tried to hand it to him.

"No, I need your help," he said in English then placed the blade on his wrist. He made cutting motions and the woman shook her head vehemently. Vin couldn't really blame her and laid his hand out flat on a rock. He would do it himself and hoped that she at least had the guts to cauterize his stump before he bled to death. The razor sharp blade started to slice into his skin painfully but before he could finish the job the woman wrenched it from his grip and threw it to the ground.

"Stupido!" she spat out and shoved him forcefully into the creek. She followed him in and, when he tried to get to his feet, she pushed him back down and held his hand, along with the entire gila monster, under the chilly waters. Within a few minutes the reptile slowly loosened its grip, let loose and started to swim downstream.

The woman then helped him up and onto the stream bank where she removed his sopping wet gun and gun belt and the tourniquet. She wrapped the blue material around his hand, motioned for him to hold it above his heart, stuck the knife in her legging, picked up the firearm and went to where his saddle lay. She dragged it into a patch of shade and pointed to it.

Vin didn't think he'd be able to make it over to her let alone re-saddle Peso as his legs grew heavy and unwieldy. She walked back to where he stood unsteadily, grabbed his arm and fairly dragged him into the shade and helped him to lie back against the saddle. She pulled a tattered blanket from the bedroll tied behind the cantle and laid it next to him.

"A blanket? In this heat?" he signed feebly, "You gotta be crazy."

"Like a fox," she signed back to him. The poison lulled him into the beginnings of a stupor and, instead of keeping a wary eye on her, he just closed his and thought that, if they were to make it back to Four Corners alive, they should be on their way just as soon as the sun dropped low enough in the sky. Once closed, his eyes refused to open again and his limbs declined to obey any commands as a chill ran the length of his body and he thought, _"This ain't good. This ain't good at all."_


	2. Chapter 2

Vin was still flat on his back and as weak as a kitten when the evening star rose and the shadows grew long. Between his bouts of nausea, during which the woman gently turned his head, held his long hair out of the way and buried his stomach offerings, and the sweats, where she stripped him bare and bathed him in cool stream water, he had been in a fugue like state somewhere between the living and the dead.

Without a word the woman simply cared for him and, when she thought the worst of it was over, she rummaged through his saddlebags. Finding his meager rations and his camp kit she brewed some coffee, savoring the taste so unlike the roasted roots and various barks used by her captors. Next she found his shaving soap wrapped in a square of linen and, stripping off her leather dress and footwear, she bathed until the cold stream numbed her hands and feet painfully.

Squatting naked on the shore she took an ocotillo branch and used the spiny stalk as a makeshift brush and soon her hair hung down her back in a smooth fall which she nimbly braided and tied off with a few blades of buffalo grass. She then rubbed her leather garments with fine sand to freshen them up before getting dressed again to sit near the small fire she had built and watch as the white man dozed fitfully.

With the falling of night a chorus of coyote barks and yelps started up in the distance and Vin awoke with a start to find himself naked under his blanket and the woman sitting by a small fire staring at him. He was surprised that she had stayed but if he had been able to see into the confusion of her mind he would have known that she had no place else to go. Who she was and where she had come from was not only a mystery to him but to her as well.

As the poison dissipated Vin's sweats were gone but the wound was now contaminated with bacteria and a fever had set in. He began to shiver so hard that the muscles in his back threatened to lockup and he groaned aloud. The woman continued to stare at him as another chill wracked his body and she thought that if the rudimentary herbs she had also found in his packs didn't cleanse his blood and break the fever there wasn't much she could do except what he had wanted her to do in the first place, cut his hand off. He wouldn't be much of a pistolaro but he would be alive.

The former captive reached for the coffee pot of steeping herbs and poured a large draught into a tin cup and with her help and despite his spasms Vin managed to down all of it.

"Thank you," he said softly then asked, "What's your name?"

The woman looked up from the fire, swallowed hard and in her stilted way explained in English, "Just a slave. No name."

Vin gritted his teeth and shivered but managed to get out, "Then I think I'll call you Molly. It's a good name…for a good woman. You can call me Vin," he told her and watched as she tried her new name out, repeating it several times to herself.

The night air was turning colder and not sure that they were out of danger, Vin asked her to bank the fire. Soon, despite his fever and the warm medicinal brew she'd fed him and the blanket he was huddled in, he was chilled to the bone. After she had tended to his horse, Molly laid out Peso's saddle blanket on the ground intending to sleep on it herself but now thought better of it. If the tracker slept on it he'd be more insulated from the heat-leaching cold of the earth and she pointed to the brightly colored wool pad and grunted.

Vin put on a good front and told her as he sat up, "I'll be fine. As soon as I get dressed you can have my bedroll. I'll keep watch," and she huffed a derisive laugh as he closed his eyes again and trembled. When he opened them again the woman stood next to him extending a hand, which he took.

He was up on his feet still wrapped in the blanket but Molly didn't know for how long. She showed him that his clothes were still damp and he knew they could quite possibly be the death of him if he were to put them on again. When she pointed to the horse blanket again he capitulated and settling him on it, she straightened out his blanket and tucked it tightly around him. For her own warmth and comfort she laid out the canvas roll in which the blanket had been wrapped beside him and encased herself in it. Satisfied, she closed her eyes and hoped that he'd be alive in the morning.

A few hours into the long night Vin began to hallucinate. He called out to his mother. He begged her not to leave him, not to die and she came back to him; slipping into the bed they shared in the rundown, one room cabin where they lived, just as she had when he was a child and the winter winds howled outside. With his mother beside him he slept easily and when his eyes drifted open a few hours later he was warm and wrapped in Molly's strong arms as she slept next to him, both of them naked as the day they were born.

Vin smiled softly when she sighed contentedly and shifted closer to him. He was thankful for the additional warmth she brought to his bedroll but not for his reaction to her close proximity and although this particular form of bundling was accepted, especially when one was in peril of freezing to death, he was purely embarrassed and clearly aroused and when he moved just the tiniest bit Molly awoke.

If she was uncomfortable with their situation she didn't show it and she simply reached up and felt his forehead, as any good nurse would have done. He was still feverish to the touch and another chill wracked his body. Stretching out her arm she picked up the tin cup and offered him more of the herbal tea, this time cold. He drank it down without complaint and setting the cup back down next to the fire's ash she pulled the blanket and the tarp back over them.

"Molly?" Vin said tentatively, "Do you know where your people are?"

After a long pause she shook her head.

"Were you a child when they took you?" he then asked her and felt her stiffen.

Again, after a long pause, she shook her head. "Not a child…a woman." She remembered that much.

Despite the grease and her sun-browned skin, Vin had estimated her to be no older than him, maybe younger, but how long she'd been held captive was anybody's guess. Long enough for her to be unaccustomed to speaking English, he guessed, and with an accent he wasn't familiar with.

Definitely a woman, he thought, as he felt her breasts pressed to his ribs and grew even harder at the thought. He smelled his shaving soap and when he ran his hand gently down her arm he felt neither grease nor dirt and suddenly he was stifling hot beneath the blankets.

His hand throbbed despite the herbs and he felt worse if it were possible. "Listen Molly," he said as his teeth began to chatter, "If somethin' happens to me you just follow the sun. It'll take you to a little town just west a here. Folks are real nice there and they'll help you. Find your people, get you home safe and sound."

"Home," he heard her say without emotion. "Home," she repeated and this time her voice was thick with emotion. "Home," she said again and started to cry.

His heart breaking at the sound, Vin pulled her closer and when she turned her face up to his, he kissed her.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a typical weekday morning and the good citizens of Four Corners went about their daily tasks. Mrs. Potter swept the boardwalk in front of her store while the hotel manager greeted passengers fresh from the overnight stage. Mary Travis stacked freshly printed newspapers on a table in her office and, as she watched the relative calm of the town out her window, she spotted Vin Tanner's horse fly by, the tracker and an Indian atop the lathered beast. Wiping her ink stained hands on her apron Mary stepped out onto the boardwalk and watched as the pair stopped directly in front of the jail, the Indian sliding down off the horses back while Vin remained astride.

"Filthy Squaw." Even in his fevered state Vin Tanner heard the offhanded remark and his head snapped up and he glared at a group of men gathering on the boardwalk to gawk.

The woman pressed her hand to his trembling leg and slowly, determinedly walked up the steps and to the jail. As she walked through the doorway J.D.'s pocketknife came to rest, stuck solidly in the planked floor, quivering just inches from her leather wrapped foot. The young lawman hurriedly jumped up out of his chair, grabbed the knife and stuck it in his pocket. He then hiked himself up in importance, hands on gun butts, and stammered, "Can I help you, Miss, er Ma'am?"

"Help," Molly replied in her stilted English and pointed to the door, "Vin…help."

Pushing roughly past her, J.D. hurried out the door and almost ran headlong into Josiah who stepped off of the boardwalk to catch the ailing tracker just moments before he fell from his horse. "J.D." the preacher shouted turning toward the young man, "Help me get him up to Nathan's."

The two of them, Sanchez with his hands under the tracker's armpits and J.D., his arms wrapped tightly around the tracker's legs, struggled to get him down the street and up the stairs to Nathan Jackson's clinic leaving the woman behind where a small crowd began to gather around her.

Words were hurled at her and she found that she still couldn't understand most them, per se, but could understand very well the tone with which they were thrown. Memories, bright glimpses of people and events from her past swirled and collided with one another just out of her reach and, as more people stopped to stare, the cacophony of sights and sounds overwhelmed her until she closed her eyes, covered her ears and pitched forward onto the sidewalk.

Later, she lay in the only bed in Nathan's clinic, Vin sitting next to her occasionally stroking her hand.

"I don't know who she is, "he said to Nathan as the healer finished tending to the tracker's bite wound, "Can't hardly speak English and only fair to middlin' Apache."

"And she's a white woman?" Nathan said daubing the infected skin with carbolic acid.

"Yeah, Nate," Vin said and downed the pain relieving and fever reducing draught Nathan held out to him. "She's got beautiful blue eyes and pure white skin under all that hide," he added and, realizing what he had said, what he'd revealed, a rosy hue suffused the Texan's face and he cleared his throat nervously.

Nathan chose to ignore the Texan's obvious discomfort and just listened when he asked, "What made her drop like that on the sidewalk? Is she sick?"

"I don't think so," Nathan surmised, "Just hunger and exhaustion most likely, maybe a little scared, too. How long you think she's been with them Indians?"

"Don't rightly know. She couldn't tell me anything about her past. I think her mind's fixed it so she can't remember," Vin said his eyes coming to rest again on her sleeping face. He hoped that one day she would forget all the rest because, as they had made love, he had felt the hardened skin of the myriad of scars on her back. Scars best forgotten.

Nathan dropped into his chair next to the bed where Molly lay. As he watched her breath easily, the door scraped open and J.D. pushed his way inside balancing a tray precariously on one outstretched arm. The young Bostonian set it down on the table and backed away, directly into Chris Larabee who had followed him into the clinic. The gunfighter merely steered J. D. out of the way and nodded to Vin.

"Molly," Vin said softly and patted the woman's hand. When she failed to awaken he gently touched her shoulder, "Molly girl, my friends brought us some food."

Her eyes fluttered open at Vin's gentle urging and, ignoring the others in the room, she let him help her into a setting position and placed the tray upon her lap. The beautifully appointed silver tray held a coffee cup, a bone china plate laden with steak, mashed potatoes and greens. Her stomach growled with hunger but before Vin could hand her the cutlery she began to shovel food into her mouth with her fingers.

J.D.'s eyes flew open in surprise an he snorted. With fingers halfway to her mouth, Molly froze as they all watched her, judged her and by their expressions she knew instinctively that she was doing something wrong. Tears started to slip down her cheeks and she bowed her head while J.D. cleared his throat in nervous embarrassment.

"Hear now," Nathan said as he rose up out of his chair. "Y'all best get on outta here. Leave my patients to eat in peace." Grabbing J.D. by the arm the healer pushed him toward the door corralling Chris Larabee on his way.

"I'm sorry, Nathan," J.D. stammered before being forcefully removed from the room followed quickly by Chris.

"Thanks J.D. …and thank Ms. Travis for me," Vin called out suspecting correctly that the Clarion editor had sent the food. He unwrapped the silverware and laid it out on the tray then pulled the bowie knife from its sheath at his waist. Slicing a chunk from the slab of meat he speared it with the tip of his knife and stuck it in his mouth, sighing aloud. He cut another piece and, lifting her chin gently with his bandaged hand, offered it to her but she shook her head.

Vin knew Molly was famished and would eat one way or another so he just helped himself to another piece of steak and waited patiently as she looked down at the tray and ran a finger over the fork's delicate pattern. Picking it up gingerly and, after only a brief hesitation, she stabbed it into the mound of potatoes and scooped a forkful into her mouth. Turning to him she smiled in delight as she recalled something as basic as the proper use of silverware.


	4. Chapter 4

"J.D.," Chris, spoke to the youngest member of the seven as they made their way down the clinic stairs and out onto the main street, "Go over to the Clarion and ask Mary if she knows anything about anyone stolen by Indians in the past few years. It's a long shot but its someplace to start."

"No need, Mr. Larabee," Ezra said coming to stand next to the two of them, "I do believe I know the identity of our mystery woman." Ezra Standish had watched closely as Vin and his companion had come into town and ever since he'd had a niggling feeling that he had seen the woman somewhere before, back east perhaps. He spent most the day trying to recall all of the dark haired beauties he'd ever had the pleasure of meeting…or bedding…and her name had finally come to him.

Wanting to deliver his news expediently so as to remove himself from the fire storm that would surely arise once the woman's identity was known he'd come looking for Vin Tanner but Chris Larabee would do quite nicely.

Chris looked askance at the gambler. The odds that the well dressed southerner would know a 'white squaw' were pretty thin but Ezra seem sure enough.

"I do believe that the…lady…Mr. Tanner is so taken with is Gaylan Waters, late of Baton Rouge, Louisiana."

"You sure, Ezra?" Chris wanted to know. He wanted to be sure before confronting the woman with the knowledge in her fragile mental and physical condition.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Miz Waters at a soirée thrown in her husband's honor, the Honorable Hanson Waters, Lieutenant Governor of the great state of Louisiana."

Chris cocked an eyebrow while J.D. simply gaped.

"All right, I wasn't exactly invited." Ezra confessed with a roll of his eyes, "I had need of safe haven that night and with a party of that scale one could most assuredly get lost and even find a secluded room in which to play a hand or two."

Chris huffed and shook his head. "Well, if it is her what's she doin' way out here?"

"I haven't a clue but if someone were to wire Baton Rouge I'm sure the matter could be cleared up post haste."

J.D. looked at Chris and mouthed 'post haste?'

"It means…now," Chris told the young man, his voice stern.

"I know what it means," J.D. said in his own defense.

"Well, then git," the gunman said sharply and J.D. took off at a run.

"She was a delightful woman," Ezra continued, "Well educated, sophisticated, always immaculately turned out. To be reduced to…that…" he added pointing up to the clinic, shaking his head sadly, "is indeed most unfortunate."

"Hopefully Mary has some old clippings," Chris said heading toward the newspaper office, "But if she's really who you say she is, this could get messy."

"For Miz Waters or for Vin?" Ezra wondered more or less to himself but Chris picked up on his drift.

"For both of 'em," he replied reaching for the door handle of the Clarion office.

Once inside Ezra voiced his suspicions and, searching her archives, Mary Travis laid one of the folios that held a years worth each of past editions of the paper onto the counter. Opening it up she flipped a few sheets then pointed to one with the first of many banner headlines. 'Lt. Governor Waters and party set upon by Hostiles' it read in big block letters.

"I remember when it happened," Mary said softly, "Everyone blamed the Lieutenant Governor for dragging his wife into hostile territory simply to impress some foreign dignitaries who wanted to see the "Noble Savage" up close and personal."

The three of them gathered around Mary and, as they stared down at the front page of the Clarion, the woman in Nathan's clinic stared back at them

Ezra cleared his throat and said, "It says here they posted rewards and searched but never came up with anything, not a single sighting nor a body." He continued to peruse the articles further, each one growing smaller and placed further back into the body of the newspaper until all mention of the unfortunate incident was gone…without resolution.

"Waters left the territory a few weeks later, lock, stock and entourage, his wife either dead or as good as dead to him," Mary said, her lips pinched in disgust, "They blamed him for putting her in harms way but, knowing the stigma attached to a white woman who's been taken by the Indians, they didn't blame him one bit for abandoning her."

"Be that as it may, I do believe we owe it to the Lt. Governor to let him know his wife is still alive albeit not well," Ezra said closing the folio.

"I'll do it," Mary volunteered adding, "I'm only sorry I won't be there to see his expression."


	5. Chapter 5

The unlikely couple of Gaylan Waters and Vin Tanner sat companionably on the small bed in Nathan's clinic, Vin just holding her hand. The food had done wonders for them both, his strength returning, the wound on his hand scrubbed clean and already starting to heal.

"If you're feelin' better tomorrow I'll get you a room at the hotel, take ya to Potter's to buy you whatever you need, maybe a new dress and some shoes. That is if it's fine with you," he said tentatively feeling her out. His intention was to introduce her back into the white world a little at a time. She looked at him, complete trust in her eyes, and knew it would be a hard row to hoe but with his support and help she should be able to have a fairly normal and hopefully uneventful life.

After a while Gaylan dozed, her dreams fitful and disturbing by the way she occasionally moaned and he placed his hand gently against her cheek and wished he could take all her bad dreams and memories and make them his own. Lord knows he had enough of them to where a few more would hardly make a difference. He stayed with her all night guarding her from any townsfolk who might have an issue with her and was only sorry he couldn't protect her from what was likely to come.

In the morning Vin asked her if she was ready to leave Nathan's clinic behind and Gaylan smiled and nodded. The tracker felt as if he were on the right track but that the residents of Four Corners, if only through curiosity, might derail his plans. They weren't exactly waiting for them but gathered around, both inside and out of the hotel, and even Vin felt uncomfortably like an outsider as they gawked. He secured a room for Gaylan and then walked her over to Potter's accompanied by the curious and the down right malicious as one man spat on the street directly at their feet as they passed him by.

Chris watched the procession and scowling walked purposefully up to the couple and turned on the others and told them testily, "I'm sure you folks have better things to do…and I suggest that you get to doin' 'em…now!" and with that the taunting children and malicious gossips, as well as the drunkards and the just plain nosy, fled like a flock of scalded geese.

Once inside Potter's Chris took a vigilant stand at the doorway barring entrance to anyone else as Mrs. Potter showed Gaylan a meager selection of calico dresses from which she choose one in blue. Vin assured her softly that the material would bring out the blue of her eyes. Next they picked out shoes and a pretty lace shawl that would protect her from the chill of the evening should she choose to venture out of the hotel and, two weeks later, she did just that.

At J.D.'s behest, Vin entered the Clarion office announced by a tinkling bell over the door. "You needed to see me, Mary?"

"Vin, I'm so glad J.D. found you." Mary's eyes spoke volumes as she walked slowly from her press to where the tracker stood at the counter, "This just came from Baton Rouge," she told him picking up a telegram stored behind the counter. She then held out the missive and the trackers sharp eyes traveled from the paper in her hand back to her face and, blushing, she asked him, "Would you like me to read it?"

"Please," he replied with an easy smile.

"Mrs. Travis,

In response to your information regarding the rescue and subsequent return to civilization of Mrs. Galen Waters, formally Gaylan Theriot, and, pursuant to our further investigation, Lt. Governor Waters has heretofore been granted a divorce on the grounds of adultery and has neither the inclination nor the desire to see Madame Theriot again.

Regards, Samuel R. Fleischmann, Esquire, Attorney at Law"

Mary looked at Vin again, at his closed face. "It means…"

"I know what it means," he hissed, "The bastard don't want her back. He's no better than the rest."

Although he smiled at her and touched the brim of his hat in appreciation Mary could see the anger in Vin's eyes. "What are you going to do now?" she asked him.

"I'm gonna tell her…everything."

It was a noble gesture but from what Nathan had told her Mary thought it would make no difference. The poor woman was scarred both mentally as well as physically and no one was sure how much, if anything, she would ever remember.

"Vin," Mary called out and the tracker turned to her, "Good luck."

"Thanks," he mumbled wondering if he was doing the right thing.

The things Vin had told her made no sense at all. Her name wasn't Gaylan and she had never been to Louisiana. She had never been married…only a prisoner. He had also told her that she had been a lady of high society married to a successful politician but she knew better. In this time and in this town she was labeled a white squaw and she now found herself cowering outside the saloon in the dark, hands shaking, heart pounding, hoping and praying that Vin Tanner would come back out the doorway that had swallowed him up only moments before. Pulling the new shawl tighter around her shoulders Molly shivered in the twilight's cool breeze just as a tall, mustachioed man rounded the corner behind her, his head down as he refastened the buttons of his fly.

Looking up Buck Wilmington stopped short of running into her and smiled. "Well, well, what have we here," his voice was deep but surprisingly soft, "I've only been gone for two weeks and look what that mean ol' wind's blown into town." He took a step closer and the dark haired beauty that had instantly captivated him looked longingly toward the doorway.

Whiskey, strong on his breath, wafted toward her and Buck, sensing her urge to flight, placed one hand on the rough planked wall beside her head while the other he ran gently and seductively down the side of her face. "Why don't you and me go for a walk? There's such a beautiful moon out and, like I said, I've been gone for two whole weeks."

Five years ago a sharp tongued rebuke and a resounding slap would have sent Buck Wilmington on his way but terror now reigned supreme paralyzing her. She turned her face as he leaned in to kiss her, his lips landing on her pale cheek, and she pushed the tall ladies' man back a step. He laughed at her perceived coyness. "So you're playin' hard to get. I do like that game, I truly do," he said softly throwing his other arm up and effectively cutting off her intended escape.

In the darkness he couldn't see her eyes, he could only hear her ragged breathing which he mistook for passion and the sound of it set his blood to boiling. Leaning in he pressed his lean body against hers and sought out her trembling lips again and kissed her hungrily, drunkenly, tasting the saltiness of her tears. "What the hell?" The thought of her in tears bulled its way through his whiskey clouded mind just as Vin charged into him, the two of them flying off the boardwalk and into the dusty street.

"Leave her be, you son of a bitch!" Scrambling to his feet Vin ratcheted his arm back to deliver a punch to the staggering and dazed ladies' man.

"Hold on there, Vin," Josiah said wrapping the tracker's fist firmly in his large hand stopping its forward motion, "I'm sure brother Buck didn't mean to buttonhole Mrs. Waters." Josiah had been walking down the street, the saloon and a warm glass of beer his intended destination, when he spotted the town Lothario drunkenly accosting a waiting woman. Quickening his pace he watched as Vin exited the saloon, the tracker's immediate actions that of a mother bear protecting her cub, and the next thing the preacher knew the two of them had tumbled pall-mall into the middle of the street, Vin bent on beating Buck to within an inch of his life.

"Now just wait a minute, Vin," Buck whined plaintively, "If I'da known you'd taken a shine to Johnny's new girl…." he started just as J.D. stepped through the saloon door, his arm around the waist of a buxom brunette that Buck had never seen before. Buck looked quickly to his left and realized that the woman, her hands to her face crying softly, was evidently the one the tracker had rescued from the Apaches.

"Buck, you idiot! This here's Wilhelmina," J.D. informed him adding with a huge grin, "Willa for short."

Never missing a beat, Buck picked up his hat, slapped the dust from his clothes with it and nodded to the woman. "Sorry 'bout the misunderstanding, Ma'am," he said sincerely then turned lascivious eyes to Johnny's newest working girl. Stepping up onto the boardwalk he pushed J.D. out of the way, took Willa's arm and, his transgressions all but forgotten, said, "And you, Willa darlin', let me to buy you a drink."


	6. Chapter 6

That night at the hotel Gaylan would neither be consoled nor comforted. She cried for hours, tears running down her pale face, tears Vin suspected she'd saved up until this very day. The day she remembered it all.

Dressed in a modest nightdress she laid on the bed, her back to him, not moving even when he laid down next to her as he had every night since she'd moved from Nathan's to the hotel. He wanted desperately to take her in his arms and to couple with her gently in the hopes that his love and devotion would be enough to show her that, from that moment on, he would protect her. Protect her from hurtful men like her former husband and relatively harmless men like Buck Wilmington and most especially from mean spirited, bigoted citizens like those of Four Corners. Hell, he'd protect her from the whole world if he had to.

All through the night Vin spoke to her softly, telling her of his plans, his new found hopes and dreams and gradually Gaylan's tears stopped. She turned to face him, nestling into his welcoming arms, and buried her face in his neck but not before looking in his handsome face in the lamplight and seeing his eyes, so intense with concern for her that she would have cried even harder had she any tears left to shed.

Exhausted, Gaylan was content to simply lie in his strong arms for a while and to just listen to the slow and steady beating of his heart, a sound that eventually soothed her to sleep and when she awoke a few hours later, alone in the bed, the room empty, she hurriedly dressed and headed to Nathan's clinic.

Vin Tanner had risen before the sun and had watched his Molly sleep for a few minutes before heading directly to his wagon where he took stock of the supplies he would need to outfit it again. He'd let the town lull him with a false sense of security but now it was time to go and, as he cleaned and repacked his meager belongings and made mental notes of the food and other sundries he would need, Chris Larabee came up behind him

"Were you gonna say goodbye?" the taciturn gunfighter asked quietly.

Startled, Vin spun around and, when he saw it was Chris, he smiled sheepishly. "How'd ya know?"

"Had a feelin'" was all Larabee said.

Vin returned to his packing as Chris walked around to the back of the wagon to lean against the tailgate and light up a cheroot waiting patiently for Vin to offer up more information.

"Thought I'd go back to my people for a while. Get a new perspective on things."

"The Comanche?" Chris asked not really sure the wanted man should venture back into Texas.

"Kiowa. Thought I'd head out to Oklahoma," Vin offered up stopping his work to turn to his friend.

Chris smiled easily and suggested, "Plenty of places to settle right here."

Vin thought for a moment and shook his head. "Nah, she's caught 'twixt two worlds and welcomed in neither and I'd spare her any more pain."

Chris knew that the acceptance of a 'white squaw' was hard if not impossible in this day and agreed with Vin but was nonetheless sorry to see the man leave. He'd come to know the Texan well and knew that, once Vin had made up his mind, he wouldn't be dissuaded. It was a trait Chris admired in the man, had come to rely on, and he respected the decency of Vin's noble gesture. Maybe with a good woman, and many hundreds of miles away from Tascosa and Four Corners, Vin Tanner could finally find the peace that had eluded him for so long. Extending his hand Chris told him simply, "It's been an honor."

Vin stared momentarily at the proffered hand and, smiling, grasped it strongly in his own, "Thanks, Chris…for being my friend."


	7. Chapter 7

"Where's Molly, Nate? They told me at the hotel she was here. I'm fixin' ta take her east with me."

Nathan walked slowly to where Vin stood expectantly inside the clinic door and spoke softly. "She's gone, Vin," the healer said grasping the tracker's arm.

"Gone?" _Whaddaya_ mean gone?" Vin demanded. "On the stage? Back to Baton Rouge? Her husband don't want her no more, just threw her away like so much offal." Moving out of Nathan's grasp he tore his hat from his head angrily scraping his fingers through his long hair.

Nathan's heart hammered in his chest but he knew he had to end his friend's wild speculation. "She didn't leave, Vin," the healer tried to explain but the tracker was more agitated that Nathan had ever seen him before.

"Then where is she, Nathan!?" Vin demanded. He was ready to lash out physically at the now reticent healer but the look on Nathan's face caused him to back off. His stomach lurched and he was suddenly filled with dread as "She's gone" echoed in his mind. "Nate?" Vin beseeched him knowing deep down in his heart that something was terribly wrong.

Sighing heavily, a look of sorrow on his face, the black man moved across the room and started to explain. "Laudanum, Vin," he said and pointed to the small bed against the wall, "She took enough to kill ten men." He stepped aside and, as Vin's eyes fell on the covered form lying on the bed, he watched the Texan squeeze his eyes shut, jaw working as he tried to come to grips with what lay before him.

"Oh, God," Vin cried plaintively, his eyes now bright with unshed tears.

"I guess she just couldn't stand the thought…" Nathan said tentatively, not really knowing, only guessing as to the woman's reasons.

"The thought of what, Nathan? Of leavin' with me? Of livin' with a man like me?" he asked as his heart broke, "I know I ain't book smart or strong on social graces but…"

"Stop it, Vin!" Nathan grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him gently. "I got to her just before she breathed her last. You were in her thoughts, your name on her lips when she passed. She said to tell ya she was sorry."

"How'd she get to the laudanum, Nathan? Weren't you here?" Vin wanted to know, ready in his newly born grief to cast blame on the nearest person.

"She came in all pale like and said she was feeling queasy, had been for a while. I told her to sit and rest and that I'd get her a little something to settle her stomach from the cafe. I was only gone ten minutes at most and when I got back she was layin' on the bed, the empty bottle next to her.

Vin's usually robust completion turned even more ashen. "Do ya think she was…" he started but Nathan was not going to let him go off on that particular tangent. Nothing could be proved and nothing good ever came of undeserved guilt.

"I don't know, Vin," he interrupted, "Her symptoms might'a just been a ruse to get me outta the clinic."

Vin was even more confused and angry and so very hurt. He had planned everything out. They would be fine, he and Gaylan…even a baby if it was to be. He would protect and provide for them and they would be happy. He would be happy. "Why, Nathan? You tell me why," Vin demanded lifting the blanket and taking a cold hand in his.

"Some women are strong, Vin. Strong like Ms. Waters and my mamma. So strong that it's takes a whole lot to break 'em but when they finally do, they just can't be fixed. My pa tried to fix my ma but he couldn't. Just like you tried to fix this highborn lady but she was broke in too many pieces...even before you found her. Maybe she couldn't stand what the Indians did to her, what they took from her and what they might have left to her."

Tears sparkled in Nathan's eyes as he thought of his mother and her shame, her fear. He looked at the woman who now lay dead in his clinic. A wealthy, southern, white woman, her life so very different yet ultimately mirroring that of his own mother, a penniless, southern, black slave.

"Vin, I think she'd a rather died than face the shame and the pain of this hateful world…just like my ma." Disgusted, Nathan momentarily thought to cursed all men but, as he looked into his friend's eyes now sharp with pain, he knew that for every man who would defile and hurt a woman there were men like Vin Tanner and his own pa who would cherish and try to protect them no matter what keeping an often times cruel world in balance.

Nathan could now see anger seething in Vin just below the surface as his friend placed the lifeless hand back under the makeshift shroud and stood to leave. It was the same anger that had eaten away at his own father year after year until he had extracted his vengeance, his pound of flesh, and had beaten his wife's attacker to death.

Boot steps pounded up the stairs that led to the clinic's door and, summoned by a small boy Nathan had given a penny to for his efforts, Josiah Sanchez burst through the door, his bible in hand. The look on Vin Tanner's face was all he needed to know. Nathan had broken the news to him and the preacher stepped up to stand in front of the tracker. "Vin, I know you want to blame someone for this."

"You got that right, preacher!" Vin said with a quiet, bitter certainty. He wanted to blame them all. Make them all pay. The Indians for sometimes waging war against the innocent, the townsfolk for their lack of humanity and Buck, well, for just being Buck. Most of all he did blamed her husband for abandoning his wife to circumstance and outcome beyond her control. Vin Tanner found he could blame them all and, above all, God. Vin glanced at the two men who stood between him and the door with cold blue eyes before he pushed his way past them and walked out.

"You best go after him, Josiah," Nathan said with a resigned sigh.

Josiah concurred but thought it prudent to stop by the jail and apprise Chris Larabee of the situation before confronting Vin and, quite possibly, his Sharps rifle.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter notes:

My thanks to Thenaggincube for the kick in the ass to get started again on this fic and to Skylark20 for the inspiration for the completely different ending to come.

m7m7m7m7m7m7m7

Chris Larabee found his friend in the bar already deep in his cups. He stood a minute and watched as Vin Tanner poured and downed yet another two fingers of rotgut whiskey. Picking up a glass from the bar top he ventured to his table and, while the other patrons gave the long-haired tracker a wide berth, he chose to ignore the almost palpable anger that surrounded the table and, uninvited, sat down anyway, placed his hat on the table and pushed his glass toward the bottle. He watched, eyes cold, his face like stone as, with only a slight hesitation, Vin filled it to the brim.

Vin Tanner had no reservations about sharing his whiskey but he wasn't about to share with anyone, not even Chris Larabee, his intentions. Ezra, Buck, Nathan, Josiah and even J.D. had already tried to talk to him about life and death, retribution and forgiveness and just as he had rebuffed their noble but maddening gestures whatever Larabee had to say on the subject of Molly's death was of no interest to him.

Chris quickly finished his drink, settled back into his chair and still without a word simply pushed the glass back toward the bottle.

The silence, not exactly uncomfortable but not entirely companionable either, stretched out between them as they continued to put away drink after drink. Having had a head start on Chris and business that still needed tending to Vin suddenly turned his glass bottoms up on the table and sat, deep in thought, while Chris finished up the bottle.

"You want another?" Chris asked as he lit up a cheroot, leaned back and exhaled a plume of fragrant smoke.

"Naw," Vin said in a measured voice, "Got things ta do."

"I know," Chris replied between teeth clamped tightly around the cigar, "I just want you to know that I'll back your play."

Stunned, Vin took a few moments to digest what Chris had said, what he had offered and then, to be sure, told him, "You might not like it."

"Don't matter," Chris told him honestly. He didn't care what Vin planned to do as long as he didn't do it alone, without someone at his back.

"I'll be headed east at sunrise," Vin then offered sure of the one thing that needed doing sooner than later. Any other plans would have to wait.

Chris stood up, picked up his hat, placed it securely on his head and nodded. "I'll be ready."

Vin watched his friend walk out of the bat wings and following soon thereafter made his way not to his wagon but to Potter's Mercantile and, after breaking a pane of glass in the door, let himself inside unseen by anyone.


	9. Chapter 9

The sun was just breaking the horizon when Chris Larabee stepped from the hotel onto the boardwalk to make his way to the livery in order to pick up his horse. Not knowing his final destination, he'd packed his saddlebags with extra ammunition, a few cheroots wrapped in a neckerchief, Arbuckle's coffee, hardtack, jerky and a change of clothes, in that order, everything he would need on the trail.

"Mr. Larabee." The voice, that of a mature woman who would brook no trouble and who was usually up before cockcrow, caused him to turn.

"Ms Potter," Chris said with a dip of his hat brim and a guarded smile when he saw the look of consternation on the mercantile proprietress' face.

"Someone…" she paused knowing exactly who the culprit was but not certain as to why, "has broken into my store and I'm afraid he's…well, not exactly stolen various items so much as left collateral for them - which is not store policy."

"Vin?" Chris guessed correctly as he followed the woman into her well-stocked store, stepping over shards of a broken pane of glass from the door.

Stopping at the counter, Mrs. Potter pointed first to a Sharps model 1853 rifle and then to a small pile of price tags which lay on a piece of wrapping paper on which three letters had been hastily scrawled. Chris picked up the tags and read them with a perplexed look. Vin hadn't left his rifle and his IOU in exchange for the necessaries of a trip to God knew where but for a consignment of curious and sundry items.

Looking up at Gloria Potter as he set the hand lettered tags gently back down on the counter, Chris shrugged his shoulders by way of an explanation and told her, "Ya know he's good for it."

Her lips pursed, she took in a deep breath through her nose then asked, "For the window as well?"

"Yes, ma'am, for the window, too."

Mrs. Potter circled around the counter, picked up the Sharps and held it out to Larabee.

"Then I'd appreciate it if you would give this back to Mr. Tanner. This is a mercantile not a Dolly Shop," she said formally but with a smile.

Chris nodded and, hefting the rifle in his hands, left Potter's and continued on to the stable where he mounted his black and headed east along the same route, according to a sleep-deprived Yosemite, that Vin Tanner and his own young apprentice blacksmith Ned had taken a few hours earlier.

Two hours later, as Chris came over a rise, he spotted a lone oak tree and the wagon whose tracks he'd been following. Vin's horse, along with the team that had pulled the wagon, grazed on the short, brown prairie grass nearby while young Ned slept away what was left of the morning in the wagon's bed. As he dismounted and walked to where Vin knelt beside a carefully dug pit, Chris saw Molly.

Dressed in a frock of sky blue she was laid out on a striped blanket made of wool, her body in repose as if she were simply asleep. Her long hair, freshly brushed and smelling of perfume, was held back with two tortoise shell combs, one behind each ear, and fanned out around her, shining like obsidian. Her small delicate hands were encased in white lace gloves and crossed over her breast, a small silver crucifix wrapped around them, a talisman to help her find her way in the Christian spirit world.

As he drew closer Chris, saw that the woman's face had been painted, the right half red and the left ocher.

According to Vin, the paint defined the two worlds in which Molly had lived and, while he felt her death commanded sacrifice, she had neither slaves nor a favorite horse to help her travel the spirit world. Her only remaining link to the white man's world was a cowardly bastard of a former husband who's sacrifice was highly doubtful - unless the Lieutenant Governor took issue with the tracker and what he had to say when he finally confronted the man.

Looking up at Chris, Vin asked, "Would you mind rousting Ned and getting the shovels out of the wagon?"

"You alright?" Chris asked in return and Vin nodded.

When he reached the wagon, Chris shook Ned's shoulder awakening him from a sound sleep. Leaning in for the shovels laying next to the boy, the hair stood up on the back of Chris' neck when a sorrowful keening shattered the vast stillness of the prairie. Turning toward the tree the two of them watched in stunned silence as Vin Tanner began to mourn.

Vin was now Molly's only family and he would wail that day and, if he were still alive, he would return and cry one year later. He continued to keen steadily even as he cut off a length of his own hair and sliced vicious groves in his skin to scar each forearm, his way of honoring her death, his sacrifice for her - his pain.


End file.
